The Jeffersonian's BoneMan
by Downside-Left
Summary: There is someone missing from the lab, and the Jeffersonian is less than happy about this. Told from the Jeffersonian's POV. One-shot.


Disclaimer: the idea behind it is mine, but anything you recognize doth not belong-eth to me. Eth.

Title: The Jeffersonian's Bone-Man

A/N: There is someone missing from the lab, and the Jeffersonian is less than happy about this. Told from the Jeffersonian's POV.

-*-

The Jeffersonian was upset. As upset as a building could be, anyways. Things had gone… wrong.

The sense of wrongness was centered on the lab. Someone was missing, and the people who were left were… they weren't quite right, either.

Who was missing?

Not the Woman-At-The-Lab-Table. She was still there, sorting through the contents of the Jeffersonian's basement, cataloguing, reorganizing, classifying. And the Man-With-A-Gun still came by every day, staying close to the Woman-At-The-Lab-Table. The air between the two of them crackled with… well, the Jeffersonian didn't really know what made them sparkle, but if even the building could sense it, it was something important.

The Dirt-And-Bug-Man was still present, but he and the Woman-With-The-Shiny-Computer had stopped… meeting in secret corners. The Jeffersonian wasn't sure what they had been doing in those corners, but it knew that they had enjoyed it, and now they weren't doing whatever it was anymore. It vaguely made the building think of what people called 'hugging', except with more… noise?

But the air between the two of them still sparked.

And the Woman-In-Charge, who had replaced the Man-In-Charge some time ago, was still overseeing the lab, keeping an eye on everything.

So that left only the Bone-Man.

Yes. Yes, where was he? The Jeffersonian hadn't sensed him since the day of that horrible explosion.

The Bone-Man was missing, and things felt _wrong_. If a building could be said to sulk, the Jeffersonian would have sulked, flatly ignoring the replacement Bone-Men (and -Woman) that the Woman-In-Charge kept bringing around. They were not the _Jeffersonian's_ Bone-Man. They may have been very nice Bone-People, but they were not the right one. There was only one right one, and he was gone.

To the Jeffersonian's limited excitement, the Bone-Man returned, but only briefly. The building was shocked, and furious (as much as a building could be), when the Talking-Man and the Man-With-A-Gun took the Bone-Man away again.

For a time (buildings don't understand time the way humans do), the Jeffersonian sulked, ignoring the people who puttered about in the lab. It wanted the Bone-Man back, _its_ Bone-Man, and it wanted him back _now_.

As the Jeffersonian sulked, it remembered the Bone-Man's presence. The very bad warm-spell, when the Bone-Man had been gone, and the Dirt-And-Bug-Man had been so worried, pacing back and forth, almost wearing a track in the Jeffersonian's floor. The Woman-In-Charge had paced as well, but only in her office, which had a carpet, so the Jeffersonian hadn't minded as much. And then, when the Bone-Man had come back, he had been different. More withdrawn, reserved…. The Jeffersonian had been very worried about him, especially when he'd lain down on the 'autopsy table' and been still for a very long time. It had been afraid that something had happened to him. After that bad warm-spell, during the cold-time, the Jeffersonian had paid extra attention to the Bone-Man, having missed his presence before. He had been different, and the Jeffersonian had tried to think of a way to help him.

Of course, it is very difficult to think when one does not have a brain, and is, in fact, a building.

The Jeffersonian sulked, ignoring the events within. It took only vague notice when the Woman-At-The-Lab-Table and the Man-With-A-Gun had begun doing the strange hugging-with-noise in dark corners, and when the Dirt-And-Bug-Man and the Woman-With-The-Shiny-Computer had resumed doing the same thing, although always in different places than the other two. The Jeffersonian ignored the day when Talking-Man and the Loud-Bone-Woman said something to the others that had them all jumping up and down, screaming and giggling.

Time passed, warm-spells and cold-times following one after the other. The Jeffersonian sank deeper into its funk, drawing notice from the occupants. The Woman-In-Charge even noticed, talking to the nice people who swept and cleaned and made the Jeffersonian sparkle every day. But things did not improve. The other people in the building noticed as well, and began to grow worried. If the building fell down on them, they would likely take it amiss.

Then, one day, familiar footsteps wake the Jeffersonian from its grumpy pouting.

The Bone-Man is back.

The other people, even the Man-With-A-Gun and the Talking-Man, are all around the Bone-Man, making the odd noises that the Jeffersonian has come to realize is the way they communicate.

The air dances, overjoyed, and the Jeffersonian relaxes and sparkles once more.

The Bone-Man is back with his family, and he is back to stay.

-*-

A/N: I wish this would happen. ZACH NEEDS TO COME BACK!


End file.
